All smiles as pupils get shoes

Companies hand out 400 pairs to needy in Motherwell and Wells Estate areas

THE Coega Development Corporation, in collaboration with First Automotive Works, ended Mandela month on a high note, handing over 400 pairs of school shoes to underprivileged youngsters at a Wells Estate school.

The two Coega-based companies added a sixth school to their ongoing corporate social responsibility projects, with the pupils of Coega Primary School sporting huge smiles as they received their new school shoes last week.

Coega Primary School Grade 3 pupil Bulelwa Nkosi said: “I am so happy to have new school shoes. It was really hard walking to school in winter with holes in my shoes.

“We walk over a field to get to school and then our feet always get wet and some children hurt themselves from the glass lying there.”

FAW and the the CDC have actively been tackling the daily challenges faced by six Nelson Mandela Bay schools over the past three years by contributing more than R200 000 through their corporate social responsibility projects.

The six schools – Fumisikoma Primary, Melisizwe Primary, Imbasa Primary, Empumalanga Primary, Mdengentonga Primary and Coega Primary schools – are located in the Motherwell and Wells Estate areas, adjacent to both FAW and the CDC.

CDC spokesman Ayanda Vilakazi said the corporation would continue to support local education in order to empower the youth through knowledge.

“As good corporate citizens we certainly hope that we can continue demonstrating Nelson Mandela’s care and compassion when it comes to local communities in dire need of our assistance,” Vilakazi said.

He said the CDC, at the start of this year, signed a memorandum of agreement with the Council for the Built Environment (CBE) which will see the CBE sponsor the CDC’s Maths and Science Programme.

“The CBE investment towards the programme will fund 75 maths and science pupils from the Nelson Mandela Bay metro and the commitment will run for a period of three years,” he said.

“To date [the start of 2017], the programme has been fully funded by the CDC, touching the lives of 322 learners since its inception in 2013.

“These students are registered in institutions of higher learning around the country.”

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MILES OF SMILES: Some of the pupils from Coega Primary who received more than 400 pairs of school shoes